Case study
Disability and Carers Service
A better service for some of this country’s neediest citizens
The Carer’s Allowance Unit (CAU) of the Disability and Carers Service (DCS) is an agency of the UK’s Department of Work and Pensions. It had to increase its service capacity and maintain quality to cope with a 25% reduction in staff, and saw the introduction of ‘Lean’ management as a proven route to success.
It also aimed to provide an improved, more consistent service for CAU’s customers, who care for some of the country’s most disabled people. Historically, and unacceptably, the more complex cases waited longest for processing. CAU turned to PA with its wide experience of Lean and cultural change to help meet its objectives.
Halfway through the project case clearances were up by 26% using Lean teams, and CAU staff are creating their own continuous improvement culture. Savings will be £3.5 million in salary costs alone. DCS had to achieve the headcount reduction by March 2008, so the speed of the Lean implementation was critical in enabling CAU to become more efficient and effective and meet this deadline.
PA’s crucial contributions included the following: helping DCS management answer the question ‘why Lean, and why now?’; rapidly equipping CAU’s own staff to implement Lean; and tailoring this approach for the public sector - aligning culture and behaviour with appropriate Lean practices
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Martyn Craske, Acting Chief Operating Officer, DCS, said:
“We knew about Lean in theory but we couldn’t really see how it would help us. That changed when PA introduced us to other government organisations that had already used Lean, and even more when we started to see the pilot in action. PA helped us answer the question ‘why Lean, and why now?’ and they then helped us deliver the vision.”
Oliver Mawdsley, Team Manager, said:
“Prior to Lean I was a supervisor, now I actively manage my team. We’re handling the customers’ claims and queries a lot quicker. So there’s satisfaction for the customer and hopefully for the staff."
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